~ Observations and Experiences of a New Protagonist

Tag Archives: Advice

Friends. People you enjoy spending your hours with for they can sympathize and relate to you. But why is it that most friendships come to an end. Incompatibility?

Or the lack of something new? We all contribute something to a friendship. Humor. Compassion. Wisdom. But after a constant stimulation of these same traits, we tend to expect the same characteristic and expect it will last and once again. Nothing new remains. Lackluster.

Lackluster.

Sometimes you like to that these long-term relationships were never meant to be as humans started out as a migrating species. It’s simply anti-evolutionary!

But an end of a friendship is not tragic. It’s the start of something new.

But there are some relationships, you realize were made for a reason. You just don’t want to end those companionships because you know you would regret it. Even lackluster has the word luster. You just need to find the luster again in your friendship. And when you do, you realize. Those are the friends that will last a lifetime.

Rumors spread. It’s inevitable that they do. There a plethora of stories from a plethora of people with a plethora of experiences. The spread of stories is bound to happen.

However, only the Storyteller can say what facts move on.

Gossip is an interesting subject. It can ruin lives but also enhance them. Life without drama can be a boring life in reality. Peace and amusement do not always correlate. An interesting TedTalk which I had seen (click here to see it) portrays gossip as an interesting study of anthropology. It reflects the views of society at a time period.

The fact that gossip is a reflection of our society changed what I thought about it. It is, in fact, a form of communication. As knowledge-seeking creatures, human beings are compulsive to spread and hear gossip.

Why are we so aversive to a method of spreading information? Censorship is prevalent in society continuously. Whether or not the government does it, society enjoys to censor itself in its very foundations. We are aversive to the weird and uncomfortable. We avoid controversial conversations so our days can stay conventional and peaceful. Even untruthful gossip evokes emotions. A reaction gives all of the Storyteller’s spoken words value.

Even inaccurate gossip evokes emotions. And it is a reaction that gives all of the Storyteller’s spoken words value.

It is necessary that we speak what’s on our minds. Because the spoken word has a power to it. The power of perspective. And without your unique view influenced by your unique life being shared with us, our ears would lack the unique knowledge you have to offer. Become a new protagonist – a Storyteller.

Yesterday was my last high school home match for the tennis season. I decided that this was worthy of reflection.

All four years of high school I had played tennis. I was never really a maestro at it… in fact, I was not very adept at all at the sport. Slowly each year I did get better at it and eventually became part of the traveling team and even won a few matches. As the season and high school are coming to an end I am slowly realizing that despite all my complaints, I actually did enjoy practicing and playing. Regardless, I had failed to show enthusiasm for the sport. Why? I’m not completely sure.

Human beings tend not to appreciate what they have and instead lust for what is unachievable. It is a psychological tendency more than a personality trait. It is a form of motivation and drives a person to ameliorate themselves. This evolutionary trait may be helpful in some conditions but makes us forget to appreciate our lives as we live it. There are going to be situations that you only experience once. And I hope one day when I indulge in these events I will be able to think back to tennis and smile a little bit more towards the present than the past.

Two days ago, I was rejected from my dream schools – Stanford, Columbia, Johns Hopkins. The week had begun horrendously. I was anxious, not entertained, and beginning to develop some illness. I had even missed an award ceremony that week because I misread A.M. for P.M on the letter. When the moment came to check each application, a feeling in my stomach had dropped as I read the letters all starting on the lines of “we regret to inform you”. No emotion initially appeared on my face. Hope is a paradoxical presence. It keeps you going but it also tears you down. Because these letters contained no reason for their rejection, I tried to attribute my failure to something I had not done well, but I could think of nothing. I had done a plethora of extracurriculars, was valedictorian, and had more than sufficient test scores for these schools. Yet I was rejected. There was an empty feeling of uncertainty for the future that filled me. I did not know what to do in my future anymore. I had everything planned out and the decision release decimated my plans.

We regret to inform you...

Would I live anything more than an average life? That question was ingrained into the back of my head. I was scared but I refused to have transparency with my emotions. I read through a multitude of blogs and articles to find any condolence but I was left unsatisfied. I could not define the rejections as a failure because there was absolutely nothing else I could have done more than I already had in high school. I had made sure to persevere in all subjects, not for the sake of college admissions but because I had a genuine interest in numerous areas. Did this itself work against me. I wanted to know the reason I was rejected. My essays? My scores? Reverse discrimination and quotas? Along with this on the next day of school despite my efforts, I was unable to keep myself from making the correlation of seeing how the wealthy students who were less qualified than me were able to get into their respective dream schools, unlike the middle classed kids who were left out to dry.

In the end, however, I realized that bitterness was not going to be a panacea for my woes. I did get into good schools but I failed to recognize that in my misery. Life does go on no matter whether or not you want it to. To obsess about something that won’t change just seems destructive. College rejections suck but there is nothing we can do to change it. And with that, I began to research the colleges that I did get accepted into and the pain of my rejections did not fade of course but subdued. Eventually, my “what if I had” questions will end as well and the “what if I had”‘s will become “how will I”‘s instead. Sometimes life is not going to go the way I want it to, but I know every road will have a unique experience right on ahead.

So I guess this is my rejection letter to my nervousness, and I regret to inform this fear of the future, this chronophobia, that I do care that I got rejected from my dream schools, but that’s simply the way it is, but I will not let this fracture of my plans affect my future. Thank you and my deepest regrets.

And to hordes of you that also got rejected, I am not going to say “you are going to do great things in the future so don’t worry you got rejected from that one college” or that “everything happens for a reason”, as my friends had told me because those reassurances lacked the certainty that I needed. I am going to say: the future is uncertain. And in this uncertainty find the certainty that it is up to you to live your life the way you want it to. Accepting what is in front of you and making the most of it is how to keep sane and functional in this world.

This may have been a bump in the road of life for me, but then again… it may have not been one as well.